This is my first post as I have been browsing only thus far. Felt like I needed to make a post so my own symptoms could be made known.

I am a 21 year old female who for the past year or more has had extremely painful bones and joints, especially in the knees and more recently in the knuckles on my hand. So bad that I find it hard walking upstairs and writing. I went to the doctor about it and they did a test for rheumatoid arthritis which was negative. A year later I went back and asked again as the pain was worse, and I did another set of blood tests.

When calling for my results they said they needed to come in again as everything was normal except something to do with my thyroid. When I went in for the test as usual the nurse could give me no information- the blood test sheet said nothing about thyroid problems but cited a raised WBC.

Obviously, the power of google made the scariest leap of high WBC to leukemia. I have read a symptom is bone and joint pain which is extremely worrying for me. I am also often fatigued and have very swollen and bleeding gums.

Of course I know the answer is talk to my doctor. However I had the second blood test this morning and I have to wait a week before getting back in touch. A week is a long time to have these seeds of doubt in my mind.

What are your thoughts? I cannot find much about what specific types of bone and joint paint I could be feeling as a symptom of leukemia.

Hi. I'm not sure I can help much with this, but I'll offer my thoughts anyway, as no-one else has.

From my own experience as a leukemia survivor, my initial symptom was a pea-sized lump at the end of my left jaw, which turned out to be a swollen lymph node. Had I been a bit more observant, I might have noticed earlier that I had been bruising very easily, and was feeling exhausted all the time, but given that I was working 100+ hours a week at the time, it would have been near impossible for me to decipher if I was exhausted because of all the work I was doing, or possible from something else. You mentioned bone pain. The only bone pain I had was the result of some of the treatment I had once diagnosed which were neupogen injections. Neupogen stimulates your bone marrow to grow new, hopefully non-cancerous white blood cells, to try to help your weak immune system out. In other words, I didn't have bone pain prior to diagnosis and treatment.

Any number of things can cause a high WBC count, including infections. You mentioned bleeding gums. Maybe you have a gum infection which has increased your WBC count, as your immune system ramps up to try to fight off the infection. Another reason your gums may be bleeding is if your platelet count is very low, in which case you probably have noticed that you've been bruising very easily lately, and any cuts you might get seem to take a long time to clot and heal.

Bleeding gums can be a symptom of leuekemia, given that the high WBC count has crowded out the platelets, leaving the blood unable to clot properly, but given that they mentioned the thyroid, and that you have arthritic-like pain, it sounds more likely to be some type of thyroid disorder, where the thyroid sees your joints as foreign and attacks them, causing them to feel sore and swollen. I understand that thyroid disorders are relatively common and that there are treatments available, so if this is the diagnosis, hopefully your doctor will be able to set you on a path to feeling better soon.

Consider this:
The incidence of thyroid disorder is 1 in 13 people.
The incidence of leukemia is 1 in roughly 9,000 people.

It sounds to me like it is far more likely a thyroid problem than leukemia.

Hi. I'm not sure I can help much with this, but I'll offer my thoughts anyway, as no-one else has.

From my own experience as a leukemia survivor, my initial symptom was a pea-sized lump at the end of my left jaw, which turned out to be a swollen lymph node. Had I been a bit more observant, I might have noticed earlier that I had been bruising very easily, and was feeling exhausted all the time, but given that I was working 100+ hours a week at the time, it would have been near impossible for me to decipher if I was exhausted because of all the work I was doing, or possible from something else. You mentioned bone pain. The only bone pain I had was the result of some of the treatment I had once diagnosed which were neupogen injections. Neupogen stimulates your bone marrow to grow new, hopefully non-cancerous white blood cells, to try to help your weak immune system out. In other words, I didn't have bone pain prior to diagnosis and treatment.

Any number of things can cause a high WBC count, including infections. You mentioned bleeding gums. Maybe you have a gum infection which has increased your WBC count, as your immune system ramps up to try to fight off the infection. Another reason your gums may be bleeding is if your platelet count is very low, in which case you probably have noticed that you've been bruising very easily lately, and any cuts you might get seem to take a long time to clot and heal.

Bleeding gums can be a symptom of leuekemia, given that the high WBC count has crowded out the platelets, leaving the blood unable to clot properly, but given that they mentioned the thyroid, and that you have arthritic-like pain, it sounds more likely to be some type of thyroid disorder, where the thyroid sees your joints as foreign and attacks them, causing them to feel sore and swollen. I understand that thyroid disorders are relatively common and that there are treatments available, so if this is the diagnosis, hopefully your doctor will be able to set you on a path to feeling better soon.

Consider this:
The incidence of thyroid disorder is 1 in 13 people.
The incidence of leukemia is 1 in roughly 9,000 people.

It sounds to me like it is far more likely a thyroid problem than leukemia.

Hi There, SilverAndSand; I just wanted to say HI to a survivor of ALL. My grandson was diagnosed with ALL shortly after he turned 3. He now is 4, and we are all hanging in there with him; hoping for the best. My prayer is that one day my grandson will also be said to have beaten ALL...That's all I wanted to say...I'm so happy you survived...God bless you! Debbie